


Bathrobes

by Marmosette



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M, dressing gown
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-20
Updated: 2012-02-20
Packaged: 2017-10-31 12:16:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/343965
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Marmosette/pseuds/Marmosette
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ahh, the slippery slope to moving in together. Mycroft has a key to Greg's flat. He knows Greg isn't there. He uses the key anyway.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bathrobes

“Greg?” Mycroft called, but there was no response. He turned the water back on.

It still didn’t feel entirely natural, taking a shower in someone else’s flat when there was no one else there. He kept trying to talk himself through it, but it was a surprisingly stubborn feeling. After all, very few of the flats he usually showered in belonged to him. He knew that someone else would have used them since the last time he had visited. Quite often. It was likely, in any case. In some cases. 

He shook his head, then raised his face to the hot water. This would never do.

It wasn’t as if Greg Lestrade’s flat was fashionable or stylish. It was lived in. It was personal. Everything in it had a function, all centering around one person: Greg Lestrade. If Greg left a plate next to the sink, the same plate would be in the same place, in the same condition, when Greg came back. If he slung the hangers in his closet to one side to reach something, the hangers would still be crowded in a tight clump the next time he opened the door. If Greg dropped a sock while folding laundry, the sock would stay there until Greg saw it and picked it up. The pictures on the walls were all of Greg’s family, the mismatched jumble of cutlery in the kitchen drawer was all Greg’s, Greg was responsible for every item that passed through the doorway.

Until he had given Mycroft Holmes a key, at any rate.

Since then, Mycroft had been fastidious in respecting Greg’s space. He didn’t try to colonize the study, he didn’t suggest different laundry soap, he didn’t swap out any of Greg’s furniture. The most he had done is purchase an extra set of bed linen, leave a few items of clothing and toiletries, enough that both of them were comfortable if an evening ran late and there was an early meeting the next morning. No one had to rush home, leave before the other woke, borrow a shirt. Not anymore. 

And Mycroft was very, very careful to fit into Greg’s life. He didn’t want to disrupt anything. He didn’t call on him at work without reason, and he didn’t ever suggest Greg should change anything. Not his socks, not his schedule, not his reading, not his toothpaste, not the type of milk he put in his tea. Mycroft did not want a unique fixer-upper opportunity. He had fallen in love with Gregory Lestrade, and saw the wisdom in allowing Greg to continue to be Greg. Of course there were differences between them. That was, in fact, why they had fallen in love.

Mycroft spun the taps off, leaving the shower in position, running a hand over his face, wiping the water off his chin and batting the shower curtain aside. Water dripped into his eye, making him blink, then squint, then close his eyes. He reached for a towel, resisting the urge to rub. Very carefully, he ran the edge of the towel against his lower lid, hoping to sweep the irritation away. A bit more blinking, but then it cleared. And he found himself staring down at the red towel. It was Greg’s. 

It didn’t matter. They had both said it didn’t. But Greg now owned a grand total of three bath towels: two were dark red, one was blue. The red ones predated Mycroft’s arrival. Those were Greg’s. After Greg had given Mycroft the key to his flat, Greg had gone out and purchased another towel, explicitly for Mycroft. It was like the sheets - it simply made laundry a less urgent proposition, really. The towel could have been any colour. Greg had simply chosen blue. Like the sheets. And now blue was simply Greg’s shorthand - if something was meant for Mycroft and Greg had any choice in it, it was going to be blue. 

Mycroft respected this. It was endearing, yes, and unnecessary, and whimsical, but it was also an invitation and a reminder. _I will let you into my life, and I will withhold nothing, but we are two separate people, and neither should fade into the other._ It wasn’t as if Greg wasn’t just as likely to towel himself off with the blue one after a shared shower, and after toweling Mycroft off first. Mycroft had done the same for him. But whenever they separated, they always reverted to the default - Mycroft’s was blue, Greg’s were red.

And tonight, Greg was away. A stake-out, somewhere Mycroft wasn’t supposed to know about, but of course did. There was no question of Greg coming back before his towel dried, and finding it damp, and protesting. Even if he did notice, his response was more likely to be a grin. But tonight there was no chance even of that. The clock continued to tick in silence, water slid off of the shower curtain and pooled in the tub, trickling down the drain. A magpie chattered in a tree outside, and Mycroft took a deep breath, tucking Greg’s towel back onto the rack. The cool air against his wet skin was making him shiver, and he flung the thick blue towel behind himself, catching it with his other hand and arching his back into it, rubbing the water off, drying his chest and arms, patting his face, rubbing his hair back off his forehead. 

He thought of the last time Greg had dried him off here. He had slipped out of the shower while Mycroft washed his hair, and was already wrapped in his own faded green toweling robe when Mycroft swept the curtain aside and stepped out. He’d stood there, grinning, his hands knotted in the blue terry cloth towel, and wrapped his arms around Mycroft, his robe absorbing as much moisture from Mycroft’s chest and thighs as the towel did on his back. There had been gentle kissing, and laughing, and a light lunch and a walk in the park, during which an argument about the pigeons in Trafalgar Square had gotten quite heated, in spite of more laughter. A young mother with two children had actually joined in briefly, taking Mycroft’s side against Greg. Greg had stomped away with her son, teaching him how to skip rocks across the pond while the mother and her daughter had talked to Mycroft about predatory birds.

He was still cold. He rubbed himself again with his towel, and turned to the door for his robe. It was a rather thin flannel material, black watch plaid. Usually, it was perfectly adequate. He never remained half-dressed for very long, in Greg’s flat. They were either undressing hurriedly, or dressing hurriedly. Once the clothing became an issue, it was changed. He had only every worn the robe a few times, when a phone call interrupted, or when Greg had made him breakfast in bed. 

Some things were proper. These things were habits. Mycroft had never rebelled. Not really.  There was always something more interesting, something to fix, something to answer, matters to discuss, people to manage. Rebellion, in his mind, was a meaningless gesture. If it solved something, then it wasn’t a rebellion. It was a correction. He never considered doing something wrong simply because he could, because, well, he could. He could always do what he liked, but generally he liked being right. Being proper. Being good.

He reached up and took Greg’s faded, tatty old dressing gown from its hook, and wrapped it around his shoulders. It was a little shorter on him, and the shoulders hung down further on his arms, but it was warmer than his own, and roomy enough. He tied the belt, ran his hands down the arms. It was soft from use, the elbows almost smooth. One of the belt loops was torn, and a safety pin held the belt in place, slightly higher than the waist. He pulled the neck closer, sniffing it, smelling Greg’s scent, his cologne, his shaving gel. 

He left the bathroom, crossing over to the bed and sitting down on the edge. Greg would not be home tonight. Mycroft was alone, in Greg’s flat. He never noticed in his own flat, of course. He was used to being alone, there. He had come to Greg’s tonight with a vague craving, and he was now certain that yes, it had been loneliness. He looked down at his hands in his lap, pale, thin fingers against the scruffy fluff of another man’s bathrobe. He smiled, briefly.

The next morning, Greg shambled into his flat, dropping his keys on the table in the kitchen. He dumped a bag of shopping on the counter, slapped on the kettle, and pushed his coat off, bunching it up and dropping it onto a chair. He hadn’t slept in twenty-eight hours, and needed to be back at his desk in ten. Tea, maybe toast, and some sleep. He pulled the milk and bread out of the plastic bag and opened the fridge. The milk inside, on the middle of the top shelf, caught his eye. He frowned, then set down the milk in his hand, next to it. His eyes wandered as he thought, then he shut the fridge decisively. And went to look in his bedroom. 

He was lying on the bed, on top of half of the duvet, the other half pulled around himself, and he was wearing Greg’s own bathrobe. Greg felt himself grinning, and tipped his head to the side to see Mycroft’s face better. Completely slack, his lips parted, his hair tousled. Greg watched him for the space of a few breaths, then knocked on the door frame with one knuckle, grinning wider as Mycroft startled awake. “D’you care that it’s morning?”

Mycroft looked over at him, and smiled. “Not very much, no. Just back?”

“Yeah. You can stay where you are if you like, but I’m coming to bed in a minute and I will break your fingers if you don’t share the duvet.”

Mycroft snorted, pushing himself off the bed to rectify this. Greg had started to turn to leave, but hesitated. “You are. You’re in my dressing gown.”

Mycroft looked down at himself, then up at Greg, one hand still holding the corner of the duvet. “Yes. I... missed you.”

  



End file.
